As I enter my second semester of seminary, I am excited for what's ahead. I have classes that are different and new. This semester I have Church Culture for Youth and Young Adults, Hebrew Bible 2, Stole-making (an arts & theology course), Church History: Reformation to Present, UMC General Conference, Spiritual Formation for Ministry, and New Testament: Epistles. The youth and young adult class will take ideas that I had as an undergraduate speech communication major and translate those ideas into theology. It feels great to have a semester under my belt; in just August, I moved across the country, started seminary and became a youth director.
 

As a part of my youth director position at a local United Methodist Church in Maryland, I took my youth to ROCK conference. ROCK is sponsored by the Baltimore-Washington conference of the UMC and gathers more than 5000 youth and adults. This year, Nicole C. Mullen was the worship leader, and Steve Fitzhugh, a former Denver Bronco, was the keynote speaker. ROCK included four plenary sessions, two breakout sessions, and a lot of free time on Saturday afternoon. Ocean City was a four-hour drive in rush hour traffic. My youth and I played those fun fan cars and different mind activities to pass the time by. It was nice to come home on Sunday to sleep and prepare for my classes this week.
 

Ocean City and ROCK were firsts for me. As I was born and raised in central Illinois, I had never seen the ocean. Even though it was very chilly all weekend and the water was freezing, to be able to stand in another place that God has created and made beautiful was amazing. I gathered a few shells as a memento of this visit, and I noticed that all of the shells were scattered across the beach and had different textures and shapes, which made each one beautiful. I was surprised that the sand was very soft to touch.  My first experience at the ocean was cold but wonderful, and I'm excited about future adventures on the East Coast!
 

Signing off,
 

Erin Totten

M.DIV, Class of 2014

Wesley Ambassador